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This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival
material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are
physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available
through the World Wide Web. See the
section for more information.

Charles Andrew Jonas of Lincoln County, N.C., attorney, state senator and representative,
U.S. congressman, and Republican Party official. Correspondence, speeches, financial records, newspaper clippings, and pictures, chiefly
1940-1948, relating to the political and business careers and personal life of Jonas.
Subjects include political campaigns; the Republican Party in North Carolina and South
Carolina; the 1930 nomination of Judge John J. Parker to the U.S. Supreme Court; lay
activities in the Methodist Church; and Jonas's treatment for cerebral arteriosclerosis
after 1948. Correspondence is by and about prominent Republicans, including presidential
candidates Thomas E. Dewey and Wendell Wilkie; North Carolina industrialist Stuart
Cramer; North Carolina Republican Party chairman Sim DeLapp; Mrs. W. P. Few, Republican
Party committeewoman from Durham, N.C.; North Carolina Republican gubernatoral candidate
R. H. McNeill; B. Carroll Reece, chairman of the Republican National Committee in
the 1940s; and James E. Shephard, president of North Carolina College for Negroes
in Durham, N.C. There is also some personal correspondence between Jonas and his son
Charles Raper Jonas.

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants,
as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Charles Andrew Jonas papers #4536, Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Gift of Richard E. Jonas of Lincolnton, N.C., in March 1989 (Acc. 89069).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or
confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy
laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. §
132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of
State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.).
Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to
identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent
of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under
common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's
private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable
person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no
responsibility.

The following terms from
Library of Congress Subject
Headings
suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the
entire collection; the terms do
not usually represent
discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or
items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's
online catalog.

Charles Andrew Jonas (1876-1955) was born in Lincoln County, N.C. He was graduated
from the University of North Carolina in 1902, received a law degree from UNC in 1906,
and returned to Lincolnton to practice law.

Jonas first won office in 1914 when he ran as Republican candidate for state senator
from Lincoln and Catawba counties. In 1918, 1926, and 1934, he won terms in the North
Carolina House of Representatives. From 1921 to 1925, he served as assistant district
attorney in the Western District of North Carolina. From 1927 until 1947, he served
as a Republican national committeeman, and was delegate to four Republican national
conventions, 1916 and 1928-1936. In 1928, Jonas won a single term to Congress, but
he lost congressional campaigns in 1930, 1932, and 1942. In 1930, he was named U.S.
district attorney for Western North Carolina and held that position for one year under
recess appointment. The Senate failed to confirm his nomination to the post.

After suffering with cerebral arteriosclerosis for several years, Jonas died in Charlotte
in 1955. A son, Charles Raper Jonas, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from
1953 until 1973.

The Charles A. Jonas Papers are a partial and scattered record of Jonas's long career
in politics and elected office. Some correspondence illuminates family life during
Jonas's final years of declining health, but, aside from these items, there are rarely
comments on matters beyond the business of politics. The papers were included with
the papers of his son, Charles R. Jonas, donated to the Southern Historical Collection
in 1989. The elder Jonas's other staff and personal papers have probably been lost
or destroyed.

The collection was arranged according to the organizational scheme established by
Charles A. Jonas as far as practicable. Most of his file labels were maintained.

Correspondence, speeches, financial records, newspaper clippings, and pictures, largely
bulk 1940-1948, relating to the political and business careers and personal life of
Jonas. Arrangement is by subject, in keeping with Jonas's organizational scheme.